Friday, August 18, 2006

Rushdie on Greer

2 Comments:

I generally feel guilty about re-printing great swathes of other peoples' text which is why I was selective with the Rushdie on Greer quote; DFH readers might enjoy the bigger picture however as it's somewhat pertinent to the general DFH firmament:

In recent weeks, he has fallen out with Germaine Greer over her support for the Bengali traders who wish to ban the filming of Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane. The traders who work there are aggrieved by Ali's depiction of the area, saying they want to protect the reputation of Britain's best-known Asian street.

"What people don't often say about Germaine Greer is that she is barking mad. She is an idiot. The idea that she would take the opinion of half a dozen 70-year-old men is moronic," says Rushdie, who has feuded with Greer before. "She's mad, and her determination to be out of step leads her into batty positions. We just watch her, and wonder why."

Rushdie has never forgiven Greer for her lack of support during the fatwa that was imposed on him by Iranian religious leaders after the 1988 publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. Forced into hiding for years, he was less than impressed by Greer's assertion that it was his own fault, for the book was only "about his own troubles" anyway.